Eu

Apple has won the right to register the layout of its iconic retail stores as a trademark in Europe, thanks to the EU court of justice overruling a German verdict saying otherwise. The company has already trademarked its store designs in the U.S. From the signature wooden tables holding up its products to the glass front with the massive branding signage, Apple has made it an experience beyond purchasing physical products.

The South Korean government announced today that it will collaborate with the EU in developing new technologies, set standards and allocate radio frequencies for next-generation mobile information and communication networks.

The European Commission has found Motorola Mobility guilty of breaching EU competition law over its use of standards-essential patents (SEPs), according to reports. PC World and Reuters are reporting that the Google-owned smartphone maker was found to have broken the law by bringing injunctions against Apple in Germany over SEPs it had agreed to license.

Good news this morning for travellers within the EU; new caps have been introduced on how much mobile carriers can charge for roaming within member countries. Roaming charges have been a topic of much debate in recent years, especially with the rise of the smartphone, but the regulators have stepped in to control what users have to pay.

If you live anywhere in the European Union, you'll be glad to know that starting next year, you will no longer be charged mobile roaming fees anywhere within the EU. The change, which may go into effect as soon as July of 2014, would apply to voice calls, texting, and data according to The Telegraph.

European regulators are looking into Apple’s deals with European carriers over antitrust fears. The European union were supposedly contacted by several cellphone carriers that sell the iPhone after they claimed that the deals throttled competition. The complaints are believed to have come from French carriers however other countries may be involved too. The news comes for The New York Times who have been speaking with people familiar with the matter.

The European Union is seeking changes to current music licensing rules that prevent companies such as Apple with its iTunes Store from easily setting up an EU-wide online music store. If the ruling gets passed, it could force music royalty-collection societies to pass their revenue streams to their rivals if they fail to license music to online services in multiple countries. Bloomberg. reports:

Music copyright licenses are granted on a national basis in the EU so consumers can only download music from an iTunes store in their home country. The EU has sought to promote pan-European licensing for years, and the commission issued an antitrust decision in 2008 against national agencies that collect royalties on behalf of artists.

According to some EU court documents, Motorola and Apple had talked about hashing out a licensing deal in late 2011. Given their rough and ongoing patent battles, it's no surprise to hear Apple claim in the documents that their "refusal to accede to this demand led Motorola Mobility to sue Apple in an attempt to exclude Apple’s products from the market.”

According to Bloomberg, the European Union Anti-trust regulators will be investigating Apple, along with five of the major eBook publishers, for possible collusion to help stifle competition within the eBook marketplace.

The European Commission in Brussels today said it opened a formal probe to examine whether the publishing groups and Apple, maker of the iPad tablet computer, engaged in agreements that would harm competition in the 27-nation EU. The probe will examine deals between Apple and Lagardere’s Hachette Livre, News Corp.’s Harper Collins, CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster, Pearson Plc’s Penguin and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH.